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Hi all. It is with a heavy heart and great sadness that I inform you of the passing of Steve G3TXQ. Steve was always keen to help all fellow amateurs with antenna issues on the UK Ham Radio Deals amongst other forums. Steve will of course be remembered for eternity as the person who redesigned the Hexbeam to what we now refer to as the G3TXQ Broad Band Hexbeam. No one owes Steve more than I do, the Hexbeam has grown from strength to strength with thousands of units being used worldwide, a true legacy indeed. RIP Steve, you will be truly missed by all that knew you. Our thoughts go out to his family at this sad time. Ant & Laura

We are almost all Hexbeam users built by Ant and designed by Steve, and we here at S.H.A.R.K pass on our condolences to Steve's family at this sad time.

As the 2018 year end draws ever closer, we like to wish all our friends around the world seasons greetings in their home language, and we do apologise if we miss yours off the list. Lets hope that 2019 brings us all we wish for, good conditions on the radio and I hope to see you all for a drink (you are buying) at some point throughout the year.

Sadly we have had to cut our activity short. The weather has forced us to lower the mast with the hexbeam due to high winds hitting the UK. This left us with the Windom and active on 40m, we tried to make as many contacts as possible but again the weather caused high static noise. We have also had a minor failure with the amp so this is going to be taken in for repair tomorrow.

We will be back on again soon. Don't for get to use the OQRS sytem for any card requests, and please DO NOT send us QSL cards via the bureau.

Tim (M0URX) has fired up the radio and has had an hour on the air making roughly 90 QSO's on 20M. We have taken a break for dinner - 17:00 on 16th September - and will be back on some time around 19:00.

Don't forget we are on the mainland (EU-005). QSL via Tim's OQRS service on his website.

WE DO NOT NEED YOUR CARD SO PLEASE DO NOT SEND TO US VIA THE BUREAU, JUST REQUEST VIA OQRS

Chris (G1VDP) and Tim (M0URX) are planning a trip to the farm HQ from Sunday 15 September 2018 for a few days. They plan on being on the air and activating the MC0SHL call on various bands. Chris is hoping to try out some FT8 if he can, first time for him using this mode, and maybe some RTTY. This will count for WFF GFF15 and IOTA EU-005 Mainland Great Britain.

Some local news from the Pembrokeshire area. This has happened close to both Ramsey Island and a little further down the coast from our club HQ. We are saddened to hear that the pilot is injured, but hoopefully not too bad. Follow the below link for full details.

The new version of the PDXG OQRS is now on line and there are quite a lot of changes. Many are cosmetic, adding a bit of colour and others are more practical. I will post a longer description later but two of the main changes;

1) OQRS now allows ''live logging'' by Dxpeditions providing they have a stable Internet connection and are using N1MM.

2) After a log search you will see that we will no longer accept email and social media requests for Missing Call requests. This is a practical change and indeed a safer way to ensure all busted calls are traceable and more important, that none are missed by being sent on many different social media platforms.Social Media requests need to be discouraged.

By using the Log Check Request Form for missing Q's this also helps me identify any serious log issues that i need to report to the DX team.

Thanks, hope you enjoy the new version which you will catch on both M0URX and M0OXO OQRS sites.

Not much happening within the group at the minute. No expeditions planned, no on air activity, or trips to our HQ - well not until September. But we like to keep up to date with what's happening down in the local area, especially the news on the RSPB Reserve we visit Ramsey Island.

The wardens, Greg and Lisa, along with their team of volunteers keep a blog and are always updating with news and pictures. Well worth supporting and bookmarking just to keep up with the island news.

It has been very difficult to get mail in and out of Venezuela over the last year due to the politcal and financial climate in the country. Several attempts to get our bureau packages to the YV QSL Bureau failed with mail being returned as "Route suspended" however thanks to the help of the YV Bureau team we were able to route the mail via USA and this was picked up by the YV team.

The photo from YV4BCD, Juan shows that the cards from Tim M0URX and myself, Charles M0OXO finally got through to the Venezuela hams.

Well the past two years have been a little difficult for us all to find time to get together for any of our activations. We all have work and families to put before the Klub. We are still all friends and regularly meet up on Skype or speak over the phone. But we are hoping this is going to change going forward.

We no longer hold the contest call MW9W, and we have put this on the biography on QRZ.com. We wish Ian, (GW0KRL) the new holder of the caall, all the best and maybe see the call once again in the contest results as the #1 station in Wales - well OK #2 after MC0SHL in the contest we enter hihi. The dates we held the call to and from (this includes M9W) are 29 March 2008 through to 15 December 2013, any QSO's outside these dates are not with the S.H.A.R.K. boys.

We will be on the air some time between the 16th and 20th July 2018 from the farm. It is hoped that there will be a couple of operators in attendance. There will also be updates and new images in the gallery afterwards. A trip around Ramsy Island is planned to get some photographs of the flora, fauna, and wildlife around the island and the farm.

So listen out for us, and please do listen to what the operator says - if they ask for outside EU then please stand by and we will get around to working you, just don't keep calling and calling if you can't hear anything as you will not go in the log - and only call with your full call sign.

Written by Tim (M0URX) and taken from his website. We urge all our friends to use OQRS via his website, especially if requesting a bureau card.

For many of you requesting QSL cards using OQRS is still a bit of a mystery. So today i will try to take you through some stages of the OQRS to help and guide you through.

1) Log search page. - Firstly you will see in red bold text the "Last QSO in the Log" date and time. If your QSO is after that time you must wait for the next log update.

If your QSO is before that time but does not appear in the log, then click on the blue box that says "Not in log?" This will take you to our Not in log page where you can enter the QSO details and this will be sent to my work desk for checking. Please do NOT send me emails as the only way we can respond is if you use our system correctly.To request the QSOs with the geen ticks, click on the blue box "Request QSL(OQRS)"

2) QSL Request Page - On the right hand side of the check boxes you will see the status of the QSL request written in green.Here you can see that the LoTW upload has been completed and that a Direct QSL has been sent.

If you have previously been sent a Bureau QSL for that QSO we will NOT send another. Please only request ONCE for Bureau. If you lost the QSL or you failed to collect from the Bureau then please use Direct QSL route.To request your QSO just tick the check box and enter the date and time and proceed to Step 2.

3) QSL Step 2. Enter and confirm your email address so that i can email you if there is any problem.

"Your QSL Manager (If any)" This box should remain empty if you DO NOT HAVE a QSL manager.

Please do NOT write anything else in this Box. DO not write any email in this box.This box is to route your QSL to your QSL manager if you have one. If you are member of DARC you can enter your DOK number here.

Please remember you can ALWAYS check back on the Log Search page to see the status of your QSL request. Which will either be "In Queue" or "Sent" or blank if not requested.

When you have requested your QSL on OQRS, it is very important that YOU DO NOT send a paper Bureau QSL. You should always mark your log accordingly as QSL requested so that when your QSL arrives you do not send out another QSL request. It is very important to use the Bureau responsibly. Bureau is NOT free it does cost an enormous amount of money so your help in using OQRS correctly is a big step to reducing bureau costs. Thank you.